Land and inequality in Canada 1870–1930

Abstract

The great world economic and globalisation boom of the pre-First World War era was accompanied by great inequality in the distribution of income and wealth particularly during industrialisation, with the new world European settler economies being no exception. Canadian wealth inequality over the period 1870–1930 was also substantial and is examined using probated estates from the Eastern Judicial District of the province of Manitoba and Wentworth County, Ontario. However, wealth inequality is found to be less pronounced in frontier Manitoba relative to Ontario with higher and more dispersed rates of land ownership in the West as well as lower wealth levels and greater farm employment, as the key factors in this difference. This suggests that the farm economy of pre-First World War Canada was associated with greater equality of wealth. One of the inevitable effects of Canadian industrialisation and economic development was a rise in wealth inequality but the process of western settlement and associated free grants helped mitigate it. By extension, global economic inequality might also have been mitigated during this period by the presence of agricultural frontiers with subsidised land grants.